This Kind Can Only Come out by Prayer | SL 3.7 (April 2022)
In this newsletter
- This Kind Can Only Come out by Prayer
- Work & Ministry Update
- The Lucy Barton Trilogy
- Whole Hearted: A Sermon on Deut 6:4–5
- Pray With Us
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Minnesota friends will be delighted to see that Natalie Nichols made it to Durham to stay with us for a few days. Natalie is a junior at Wheaton and she's finishing up her semester abroad at Oxford—she's doing an amazing job soaking in England and we were thrilled to show her around Durham. (FYI: the UFO behind Natalie is Meghan holding a plastic bowl for foraging wild garlic! And can you spot the peacocks?).
This Kind Can Only Come out by Prayer
Dear friends, this will be the last regular newsletter for a little while. Over the past few months I have grown more and more mentally exhausted and "inspiration" is at a low ebb. Over the next three or four months I will finish the dissertation—one way or another—and I need temporarily to jettison anything that is not essential to that task. I love writing this newsletter and I deeply appreciate all of you who read it, pray for, and support us. I'll be back! I'm merely going to give myself a pass on putting it together each month.
I will, however, certainly keep you all in the loop as I travel and teach. Check out "Work & Ministry Update" below if you want a blow-by-blow of what the future looks like (as well as I can see it).
In the meantime, the one thing needful is the dissertation. I'm working to finish a draft of the last chapter as soon as I can (this month?). After that I need to do heavy revisions/rewriting of all the chapters as well as all the finalizing steps (write a conclusion, revise bibliography, front matter, etc.). Recently I've been floored by discouragement and anxiety over this—not over whether I can finish or whether it's any good or anything like that—but just over the time frame. It seems like there is simply not enough time between now and "this Summer" to do all that remains to be done. And I am tired, have I mentioned that?
I've been thinking about (and taking slightly out of context) that line from the Gospels where the disciples are frustrated that they could not cast out a demon and Jesus tells them, "This kind can only come out by prayer" (Mark 9:29). So this is my stance going into the final phase of writing. I don't see how this is possible, but with God all things are possible—this kind only comes out by prayer.
Man, peacocks are incredible birds. This one roams Old Durham Gardens.
You are Strengthening the Global Church by Training Pastors to be Faithful to Scripture
- From August 15–19 I'll be in Liberia with Training Leaders International and a team of student-teachers from William Tennent School of Theology. We'll be teaching the Gospel of Mark for some 80–90 pastors, helping them learn to interpret Gospels as a genre and to preach and teach from the life of Christ well. This is the exciting culmination of a long-planned partnership. (After further reflection and monitoring of the situation, Tennent decided not to take students to Ethiopia because of the ongoing civil war there.)
- As Training Leaders International launches some new sites this year, I'll pick up a few more teaching trips over the Summer and Fall. Perhaps going to the Dominican Republic to help launch a new site for Haitian pastors there or returning to Liberia in December.
- In July I'll be traveling to Salzburg, Austria to attend the international meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature where I'll present a paper on Proverbs 30 as a humorous text.
- Over the Summer I'll finish the dissertation! I can't say if this will be in June or August, but I'll get it done one way or another. This kind can only come out by prayer!
- We're also hoping to travel home to Florida this Summer for a much belated visit and we are looking forward to seeing many of you.
- Later in the year there is lots of teaching and writing and conferencing lined up—but I'll relay more about this over the Summer as the dissertation winds down.
- Once the dissertation is done, I'll return to teaching overseas with Training Leaders International as a primary focus. I'll once again be teaching at least four courses per year overseas and seeking to develop relationships with specific sites. Secondary focuses will be teaching with William Tennent School of Theology and furthering their partnership with TLI, as well as academic research and writing.
- After I finish the PhD, Meghan and I are planning to stay in Durham for the short term. Durham is an excellent base of operations for teaching overseas and being involved in academics. But more than that it is where our girls now feel at home and we don't want to move them until we have a sense for where God would have us settle indefinitely.
Thank you. Your prayers and support empower everything we do.
Janie, 13 months and steppin' out
The Lucy Barton Trilogy
These three slim novels—particularly if taken together—are transformative reading. Elizabeth Strout's ability to inhabit the voice of Lucy Barton as a narrator and bring us into her inner world, her experiences, and her poignant observations is simply on another level of artistic craft. Hilary Mantel has this commendation on the cover of My Name is Lucy Barton, "Writing of this quality comes from an attention to reality so exact that is goes beyond skill and becomes a virtue." Meghan and I agree that she put her finger on it. Strout's writing is so unobtrusive and observant that it is a virtue.
Lucy Barton, the narrator and title character, grew up in extreme poverty with abusive and neglectful parents in small-town America. She managed to leave, accidentally landed in New York, and eventually became a famous writer. Through her voice we are introduced to a cast of characters including her siblings, parents, the small town she came from, and her ex-husband William. These are deeply poignant novels, with honest portraits of human brokenness, but through Lucy's transcendent voice they never loose their grip on hope.
Strout's writing is incredible. It is not showy at all. In fact, it is so smooth and often simple that you forget it's there—a rare gift. And then, she will develop a metaphor or a detail so moving in its specificity that it brings you to a halt. Here's how Lucy described the feeling she had when she learned her husband was having an affair:
A tulip stem inside me snapped. This is what I felt.
It has stayed snapped, it never grew back.
Or this description of how Lucy views herself in the world, which captures her voice:
Please try to understand this:
I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.
I feel invisible is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is very hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say—oh, I don't know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in the house when I was growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I really do no know what I mean, except to say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.
Tulips as a symbol and the idea of feeling invisible are woven through the book in a way that fills these passages with more meaning than I can hope to capture here. But these bits give a sample of the themes and the voice of the novels.
Writing like this makes us into better people, more honest, thoughtful, truthful. By attending to such things we can become more open to God, to his work in the world, and to people he has placed in our lives.
Early Spring Daffodils
Whole Hearted: A Sermon on Deut 6:4–5
To continue our series on the Pentateuch, and in lieu of the usual essay I include here, I wanted to share the sermon on Deut 6:4–5 I recently preached at ChristChurch Durham in the student service. You can read it online or easily print it out using the link below.
Whole Hearted: A Sermon on Deuteronomy 6:4–5
You may also be able to listen to the sermon on the ChristChurch SoundCloud page.
Exploring paths around Old Durham Gardens
Pray With Us
- Pray for stamina and focus as I work to finish the dissertation over the next few months. Pray that I would not be too anxious but that I could work steadily and concertedly and that—somehow—the work would come together faster than seems possible.
- Pray for the right teaching opportunities with Training Leaders International to come together over the next few months.
- Continue to pray for wisdom and guidance for many opportunities over the coming year.